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Re: Trans: Shoeflower Nose Man

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Friday, October 26, 2001, 15:16
Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> If you can translate a sentence such as: "if I see the man who walked on my > flowers, I'm gonna make him eat his dirty shoes through his nose!" :)) > without grammatical difficulties (I'm not talking about a lack of vocabulary), > I'd say your language is pretty complete.
Well, Lojban passes easily: ganai mi viska lo cadzu be le mi xrula gi .aicai mi bapli le nu ra citka ro le mabla cutci pe ra fi'o moklu le ra nazbi (most letters as in IPA, but c=[S], j=[Z], . = glottal stop, penultimate stress) Here's an interlinear: ganai mi viska lo cadzu be le mi xrula If I see the-one-who walks-on the of-me flowers gi .aicai mi bapli le nu ra citka ro le mabla cutci pe ra then [Intent!!!] I compel the event-of he* eats all-of the #@%$ shoes of him fi'o moklu le ra nazbi with-mouth the of-him nose. *"Ra" specifically means something recently mentioned, but not the *last* thing mentioned. Note that I have chosen to translate "dirty" as an expletive rather than literally. Lojban has in effect an infinite number of swearwords, because compounding any content word whatever with "mabla" gives it a bad connotation. Likewise, Lojban has an infinite number of prepositions, because "fi'o" can be followed by any content word to make an additional case connected with the meaning of the word. "Citka" takes two arguments, eater and eaten, but I here add a third argument for the eating-orifice using "with-mouth". -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Please leave your values | Check your assumptions. In fact, at the front desk. | check your assumptions at the door. --sign in Paris hotel | --Miles Vorkosigan

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Muke Tever <alrivera@...>